Verse 22
Ye hi samsparshajaa bhogaa
Duhkhayonaya eva te;
Aadyantavantah kaunteya
Na teshu ramate budhah.
The enjoyments that are born of contacts are generators of pain only,
for they have a beginning and an end, O Arjuna! The wise do not rejoice in them.
Any joy that comes through the contact of one
thing with another thing cannot be regarded as real joy. There are five types
of contact with external things: contact through the eye, contact through the
ear, contact through the nose, contact through the skin, and contact through
the tongue. The joy that we get by this kind of contact is an unreliable joy.
It is a deceptive experience that we are passing through, and we wrongly
come to the conclusion that we are experiencing happiness because
this kind of contact appears to be pleasant in the beginning but breeds sorrow
later on.
Even at the time of the enjoyment of a sense
object we are under an illusion, and it is not a real joy that we are
experiencing. Why do we feel happy when we come in contact with a mango or a
cup of delicious kheer or any pleasant object?
The reason is that when the mind is not in
contact with any sense object, it is restless in itself, and it goes out in
search of its own food in the form of objects. The mind that is not in contact with
objects moves out in search of those objects which it finds pleasant to
contact.
When the mind moves in that way, the
consciousness of the Atman, or the Self, also moves together with the mind — just
as electricity flows through a wire. Wherever the wire is, there is also
electricity.
Swami says,
“Although Joy naturally emanates from the
core of your heart, you think you are deriving joy from the sense objects and
the sensory organs. But this is not so. All joy comes from within you, and you
have deluded yourself into thinking that it comes from outside”.
Wherever the mind is, the Atman also goes, as
it were, due to the attachment between the mind and consciousness that is
caused by karma; and when the contact takes place with the consciousness, the
mind feels that there is no further necessity to move outside in search of an
object, because the object has already come into possession.
In deep meditation, the mind ceases to move
outside, and comes in contact with the Self inside. Immediately there is a joy.
The joy, therefore, has come from within us. It has not come from the object,
yet foolishly we think that the object is painted with bliss and we are the
abodes of sorrow, which is not true.
The reverse is
the case. All those who run after the pleasures of sense will reap sorrow one
day or the other, for anything that has a beginning will also have an end — ādyantavantaḥ. That which has
a beginning will also have an end because our pleasures, which are contact
born, begin with the contact itself. Therefore, they shall end when the contact
ceases.
There is bereavement on account of sensory
contact. Our relationship with this world is fragile.
The coming in contact of beings, the
friendship that we have, the community that we establish humanly, are all false
in the sense that they are conditioned by the winds of cosmic powers which
breed contact; and when these winds blow in a different direction, we are
separated, and then we say that somebody died.
When the mind is not attached to external
objects of the senses, when one is deeply engaged in the
contemplation of Brahman, he finds undiluted bliss in the SELF within!!
Love.
